If you don't give yourself enough time to sort through the options available to you, you might wind up paying your insurance company a lot more than necessary -- which is exactly what a lot of my former colleagues in the business are hoping for.

And the same survey has numbers for Colorado: In 2013, 17 percent of residents had no insurance. A year later, after the start of the ACA, the number is down to 11 percent. Colorado ranks fifth among all states in reducing the size of its uninsured population.

Is it possible to consider a single nationwide marketplace that would include every healthcare provider, every doctor and every hospital, so that people like me, people willing to foot the bill for better care, can and will. And people wanting lesser plans can go that route.